Some modern data buses and interfaces offer flexibility to control or access large number of memory address or registers. This allows hardware designs to able to incorporate increasing number of features with the increasing memory and registers, without the need to change or redesign bus or interface configuration. This would also allow backward compatibility of designs.
Other modern data buses and interfaces may be optimized for speed with predefined data and command format. These buses and interfaces, however, may not be very compatible with other devices or components.
In applications such as telecommunication, a base band IC (BBIC) may include several thousand on-chip registers, and an embedded processor with its own memory and subsystem of registers. The application may need the processor to sending requests or commands on the one type of bus to access the registers, while the chip itself allows external access of the registers via another type of bus.
Thus, there is a need for improved bridge circuit that can efficiently arbitrate bus commands.